When everything is absolute–except definitions and deities’ desires–you too can be pro-life dullard

A few days ago I wrote about a post by one of the Granite Grokkers (Groksters? Grok Stars?), a small collective of conservative bloggers I discovered only because they live in my state and previously featured the breathless screeching a notably hysterical homophobe (who appears to have moved on).
Skip, writing about newly minted mother-of-fourteen Nadya Suleman, was expounding on the idea that “this case truly brings into focus is whether or not it is ethical for anyone to have more kids than they can afford.” He calls her selfish and sick, and refers to her as a “lady” using quotation marks (and was kind enough to explicitly say that the quotes implied he was being sarcastic). He adds, “Yet, there are those that will look at this and see nothing wrong,” although he doesn’t say who these alleged happy-go-lucky apologists are or where they are commenting. He writes, “Just because someone decides that having babies out of wedlock is not subject to ‘black and white’ means that it is,” a clumsy bit of wordsmithing I take to mean that having babies out of wedlock is, though perfectly legal and not necessarily indicative of a single-parent situation, plain wrong.
Okay, we get it: The woman’s nuts and irresponsible. Skip, while acknowledging that Suleman is an outlier, complains that “you and I” will be footing the bill for her offspring. He asserts that an increasingly secular society with its attendant moral decline (yes, his thinking is that unsophisticated) is to blame, as society at large becomes resistant to properly judging those who go astray. But most conspicuously, he offers no solutions. Why? Because he doesn’t have any, and some part of his brain recognizes that he is pissing into the wind.
Anyway, I asked him in a comment to his entry how he could reconcile his ranting with his anti-abortion views, and also invited him to expand on what he meant by “moral relativism. He informed me that he was traveling and would address the issue later.
He hasn’t done this, instead choosing to ratchet up his incoherence as well as put the boilerplate nonsense proffered by categorical opponents of abortion on display.

In a post last night, Skip complains that Barack Obama is employing a double standard when he says, “”There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.”

There is NOTHING more innocent than the unborn; yet, Obama has no problem in restarting funding of abortions with US taxpayer monies overseas. How can one take both sides of the argument, appear to be for both, and not have their head explode from the shear illogicalness of it?
Yes, Doug and I are extremely pro-life, believe that a new life begins at conception, that this new life is very precious in God’s eyes, and wish that others that are so willing to keep other humans alive would make that logical connection.

Shear illogicalness indeed. Skip says that Obama’s words represent “the same ideological grouping that will go the distance to keep a convicted killer from receiving the death penalty,” but somehow I don’t think that when Obama speaks of innocent people, he’s talking about those rightfully convicted of heinous crimes. And Skip apparently doesn’t understand that Obama’s repeal of the Mexico City Policy does not translate into funding abortions any more than it does into funding counseling, offering contraceptives, or what have you. What it does is remove the element of blackmail: “If you want our money, you will discourage abortions.” Then again, not understanding something not only fails to deter the Skips of the world from opining; it’s virtually essential.
But the worst of this garbage is, of course, the part consisting of the central dogma of the pro-life playbook: Abortion is killing, life begins at conception, God hates abortions.
Only people who equate abortion with infanticide see Obama as contradicting himself. Since this equivalency is specious–and I don’t think I need to explore the different capacities to experience pain of an adult serial killer and a first-trimester embryo (90 percent of abortions occur before 13 weeks) with an undeveloped neurological system–Skip’s contention, as with every other like it, collapses.
These people blather about life beginning at conception as though this is something that happens in an instant, like flicking a light switch. Sorry, gang, but biology is more nuanced than that. This has given the Roman Catholic Church fits ever since science started outpacing mythology and humankind developed the capacity to physically investigate whether “soul” that supposedly winds up in everyone at the “moment” of conception actually exists. Surprise, surprise; not only is it not there, but people who believe in it can’t even decide what it would look like if it were. It sucks that life isn’t a the convenient assortment of blacks and whites that some pretend it is.
And if you think “God” gives a rip about the legality or morality of abortion, give us evidence that this is true, because God himself is not only a murderous psychopath generally, but is also the most profligate abortionist in the history of the world, given the number of fertilized human ova that fail to implant or ultimately result in miscarriages (on the order of half). And if this is okay because it’s God’s will, well, what was that bit about moral relativism again? To Skip-like organisms, it’s okay if deities practice this, I guess, but not people. Welcome to moral subjectivism!

So are Obama and other pro-choicers who oppose putting innocent people to death being hypocritical? Sure–if you ignore your own call for absolutism and redefine words themselves to suit your needs, like these clowns.
And speaking of the H-word, I’m curious as to how Skip plans to reconcile the idea that there are too many babies in the world with an unyielding opposition to abortion. People who simultaneously hold two these ideas invariably set themselves up to fail, both rhetorically and psychologically. They are forced to ignore the realities of human behavior, claiming that people who are not prepared to be mothers shouldn’t have sex. This is kind of like claiming that people not prepared to have COPD or lung cancer should not take up smoking, except that pregnancy is neither a disease nor “incurable” and sex is a lot more natural and compelling than inhaling smoke (until the latter becomes habitual, that is).
Though I am pro-choice, I can abide by certain pro-life arguments–but not those harvested from fantasyland and predicated on both the desires of nonexistent beings and the philosophically vacuous idea that everything is binary. Where I agree with pro-lifers is that abortion is a response to an unfortunate situation, which is why I dismiss terms like “abortionist” (as if terminating pregnancies is the only service doctors who do so offer) and “pro-abortion” and assume–often wrongly–that others see them as farcical on their face, too. After all, people who scream about proponents of the Iraq war being motivated first and foremost by a desire to kill aren’t taken seriously.
What a Grok of…okay, that’s a really bad pun. I’m done.

You atheist anarchists are sick and tired and we are sick of you, even if we are non-religious types..
Obama has proven to be the worst president in the least amount of time – 15 days.
Marxism sucks.
Obama is a puppet and a mere tool for the international bankers and he is helping them steal from us. These globalist sickos are also big advocates of eugenics.

mgordon, that’s just a small sample of NH’s far-reaching incoherence–see more here. (Why is it, by the way, that the real Internet whackjobs almost always have to incorporate their home states into their handles?) Apparently the 40 years he claims to have spent in academia and his ability to paint with oils on canvas are reasons to take his bullshit seriously.
It amazes me that people like Doug can complain that Obama’s going to ruin the economic profile of America after the past eight years of insane plunging into the red. I guess when you’re stupid enough to think that what’s happening in Iraq is actually contributing to keeping America safe from Islamofascist terrorists, you can overlook anything.
Blogs like Granite Grok invariably attract the dangerously unhinged, which is about the only reason to look at them.

mgordon, that’s just a small sample of NH’s far-reaching incoherence–see more here. (Why is it, by the way, that the real Internet whackjobs almost always have to incorporate their home states into their handles?) Apparently the 40 years he claims to have spent in academia and his ability to paint with oils on canvas are reasons to take his bullshit seriously.
It amazes me that people like Doug can complain that Obama’s going to ruin the economic profile of America after the past eight years of insane plunging into the red. I guess when you’re stupid enough to think that what’s happening in Iraq is actually contributing to keeping America safe from Islamofascist terrorists, you can overlook anything.
Blogs like Granite Grok invariably attract the dangerously unhinged, which is about the only reason to look at them.

[Q] You atheist anarchists are sick and tired and we are sick of you, even if we are non-religious types..
Obama has proven to be the worst president in the least amount of time – 15 days.
Marxism sucks.
Obama is a puppet and a mere tool for the international bankers and he is helping them steal from us. These globalist sickos are also big advocates of eugenics.[/Q]
Lessee… Anarchist (check), Marxist (check), Failure to understand both (check), personal attacks on Obama (check), International Jewish Banker Conspiracy (missed the Jewish, but we can forgive you – check) Standard right wing paranoid diatrib.. – hey, jackass! You missed commie, you dolt! If you’re going to insult me as a Liberal, I demand you do it right, damn it! I’m an Atheist-Commie-Anarchist-Big-government-loving-Baby-killing-Marxist-member-of-the-Global-Jewish-Banking-Conspiracy-(even though I’m not Jewish)-Socialist-who-feasts-on-the-souls-of-small-unborn-mammals-and-drinks-blood-from-young-Xtian-children-vegetarian-hippy-American-hating Liberal. And don’t you forget it!
(the funny thing about that? I really am a socialist, and I’m almost a vegetarian :) )
Enigma

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Doc Bushwell is busy with other activities but continues to lend a moniker to this backwater of a blog. Jim is an engineering professor with a fondness for running shoes and drumsticks; and Kevin Beck is a self-exiled member of the clan who refuses to stay gone.